A file of negroes was approaching the tents, each leading a horse whose saddle and bridle were decorated with fringes of various hues. In the center of the roped lists, directly in front of the stand, others were planting upright in the ground a tall pole from whose top projected a horizontal arm like a slender gallows. From this was suspended a cord at whose end swung a tiny object that whirled and glittered in the sun.
The judge explained. “On the end of the cord is a silver ring, at which the knights tilt with lances. Twelve rings are used. The pike-points are made to fit them, and the knight who carries off the greatest number of the twelve is the victor. The whole thing is a custom as ancient as Virginia—a relic, of course, of the old jousting of the feudal ages. The ring is supposed to represent the device on the boss of the shield, at which the lance-thrust was aimed.”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Katharine, and turning, swept the stand with her lorgnette. “I suppose all the county’s F. F. V’s. are here,” she said laughingly to Nancy Chalmers. “I’ve often wondered, by the way, what became of the Second Families of Virginia.”
“Oh, they’ve mostly emigrated North,” answered Nancy. “The ones that are left are all ancient. There are families here that don’t admit they ever began at all.”
Silas Fargo shook his stooped shoulders with laughter. “Up North,” he said genially, “we’ve got regular factories that turn out ready-made family-trees for anybody who wants to roost in one.”
Betty Page turned her piquant brown face toward him reflectively. “Ah do think you No’therners are wonderful,” she said in her languorous Carolinian, “at being just what you want to be! Ah met a No’thern gyrl once at White Sulphur Springs who said such clever things, and Ah asked her, ‘How did you ever learn to talk like you do?’ What do you reckon the gyrl said? She said she had to be clever because her nose was so big. She tried wearing tricky little hats and a follow-me-in-the-twilight expression, but it made her seem ridiculous, so she finally thought of brains and epigrams, and took to reading Bernard Shaw and Walter Pater, and it worked fine. She said trouble suited her profile, and she’d discovered people looked twice at sad eyes, so she’d cultivated a pensive look for yeahs. Ah think that was mighty bright! Down South we’re too lazy to work over ourselves that way.”
And now over the fluttering stand and the crowd about the barriers, a stir was discernible. Katharine looked again at the field. “Who is that splendid big old man giving directions? The one who looks like a lion. He’s coming this way now.”